A/N: A moment that explains everything- and changes it all.
DISCLAIMER: If I owned the characters I wouldn't need to write a disclaimer.
The night had not gone as planned. Their rock-solid evidence was deemed circumstantial, and they had to work for hours to get something else on their prime suspect.
Half of the time they were alone and bored in the squadroom, the other half was spent running around the city like a pair of loons. The downtime did give them both time to think, and Olivia's thoughts were not entirely focused on the case.
In between phone calls and runs to the lab, she sat at her desk and let herself remember.
She remembered the panicked phone call she'd gotten from him, over a year ago, the way he'd babbled so frantically that she'd hung up and made the drive to Queens to calm him down and find out what he'd been trying to say.
He'd broken down the moment she'd walked into the house, telling her that he'd come home from work to find Kathy, his wife, gone, along with his children. The way he'd cried in her arms had broken her heart, but it was the way he'd looked up at her and silently begged for her help that had made the decision to stay with him an easy one.
Kathy had dropped the kids back off at the house the next day, but didn't return herself. She'd said goodbye to them, told Elliot a friend would be by for the rest of her things, and drove away leaving twenty years and five children in the dusty glow of her tail lights.
She cleared her throat, shaking off the painful memory, and grabbed her NYPD coffee mug off of her desk. She reached over and picked up Elliot's, too, and turned toward the back of the room. She felt his eyes on her as she poured the fresh coffee, his footsteps hitting her ears while she fixed both cups identically. She smiled at him as she handed him his coffee, taking a sip of hers, and tried to walk around her to go back to her desk.
He reached for her arm, curling his hand around it and, and pulled her back to him. "I was thinking," he told her, bringing his coffee to his lips as he trailed his hand up to her shoulder. "About the day...the day Kathy left for good."
"Coincidence," she said, feeling his hand slip down her back, her body turning toward his. "So was I."
"I doubt we remember it the same way," he laughed, taking another sip of his coffee. He pulled her closer as he placed his coffee down on the table near the pot. "I don't remember what she said, what her reasons were," he said. "But I remember what you were wearing. I remember exactly what you said to her, and I remember..." He took a breath and licked his lips. His other hand took hold of her hip and he swallowed a gulp before speaking again. "You took the kids back into the house, told them to go out on their favorite pajamas."
She smiled. She remembered, too, but didn't think he was paying attention to anything then. "Yeah," she whispered.
"You called the school, told the Headmaster they all had food poisoning," he laughed, sweep in one hand up her side, brushing her face, and he tucked her hair behind her ear. "You made them sit on the couch, you let them rent whatever movies they wanted, and you didn't let Eli off of your lap the entire time."
"Even if I wanted to put him down, he wouldn't let go of me," she countered. Her breath hitched when she felt his hand fall from the side of her face to around the back of her neck. She prayed that no one would walk into the room.
He looked into her eyes and curled the hand at her back around the hem of her shirt. "You ordered pizzas, you let them get whatever toppings they wanted, and then you stayed to tuck the twins and Eli in, you read him a story, and you did it all without anyone asking." He moved closer to her. "That night," he whispered just as his lips brushed hers, "Was the first time I let myself feel everything I was fighting. And when you willingly crawled into bed with me, just so I wouldn't be alone, that's the moment I realized just how big a favor Kathy did by leaving." He kissed her softly, quickly, and backed up to look at her again.
"Nothing happened that night," she said, her eyes narrowing slightly.
He chuckled, taking her coffee from her and putting it down next to his. "Not physically," he said, "Other than just holding each other all night, but everything happened that night. Everything." He took a deep breath and pulled her toward the angled staircase.
She fought him on it, shaking her head and trying without much success to pull him back toward their desks. "El, we have to finish..."
"Paperwork is gonna be there later," he cut her off, smirking. "Come with me, just give me ten minutes."
She rolled her eyes. Elliot's "ten minutes" was the rest of the world's "hour." She saw the look on his face, the plea in his eyes, and she caved, letting him drag her up the stairs and into the cribs.
He pushed her further into the room, closed and locked the door, and then loomed over her with a wicked gleam in his eyes. "I wanted to go home, spend some time with the kids," he spat out, taking off his tie with one hand while the other popped the buttons on his shirt. "And then...I wanted to...take more than ten fucking minutes."
"What?" She let out a surprised laugh. "What are you..."
He pressed a finger to her lips and shook his head. "No time," he said, and as soon as the words left his lips he replaced his finger with his mouth. He pried open her lips with his tongue, his hands working to get her shirt off and pants down. He laughed when he felt her moving, knowing that she was helping herself to his pants. He kicked them off when they dropped to his ankles, and he refused to stop kissing her as he fumbled around to get his shoes off. He toppled over, taking her with him as he fell into a nearby bed.
She moaned, feeling his hands smoothing up her body, his fingers pulling at her nipples through the satin of her bra. She squeezed her eyes shut when he pulled his lips away from hers, dropping them in light pecks down her neck and over her chest. "We're at work," she protested, knowing his hands were heading southward to pull her panties away from her body.
"Work's done," he mumbled, tugging the fabric down and latching his lips onto her right nipple. He suckled on it, moaning, as his hands shoved the silk underwear over her hips. He moved fast, picking up his head and crashing his mouth into hers, catching her cry as he pushed into her roughly.
Every moan, gasp, and curse was muffled by powerful kisses. Her body rose to meet his as he thrust, her fingers dug into his back, and this moment sealed itself into her memory. "Elliot," she whispered against his lips.
He whispered her name back to her, his hands wrapping around her wrists and pulling them away from his back. He moved her arms and pressed them into the mattress as he worked harder and faster, knowing their moment alone was fleeting. "Cum for me," he whispered into their kiss.
It was as if he'd said some magic spell. As soon as he told her to, she did. She clamped tightly around him, clenched as she screamed his name into his mouth.
He was still kissing her madly as he tried to thrust through her tightness. "God," he breathed, "Fuck, baby." He gave her two more pounds and stilled, as deep as he could get, and he let it all go, growling as he came, hot and fast, inside of her.
He loosened his grip on her wrists, softening his touch and slowing his kiss. "Cross this off our list," he said with a quiet chuckle. "Sex in the cribs."
She laughed, trailing her fingers up and down his arms. "We still have a couple places to go." She looked up at him. "What brought this on?"
"I planned this amazing night for us," he confessed. "We had reservations at Pethos uptown, I was really gonna pour on the romance."
She blinked and squinted, her palms splaying over his back. "Why?"
"You have no idea what today is," he realized, and then he laughed as he kissed her again and pushed himself up.
She moaned as he pulled out of her, but sat up as soon as he was off of the bed. She thought for a moment, and then she gasped. "Oh," she said. "Yeah, I do."
He had just pulled his pants up, and leaned over to kiss her again. "We just celebrated in the best possible way."
She smiled as she was lifted out of the bed, and they helped each other get dressed. After a long separation, and almost a year of red tape and bouncing around the legal system, he was officially, as of today, divorced.
Officially hers.
She fixed his collar and let out a breath, kissed the end of his nose, and asked him, "How do you feel?"
He grinned. "Already over it, and working on marriage number two." He held up two fingers, smirking, and blew her a kiss as he walked out, knowing it would take her a moment or two to realize exactly what he said.
A/N: I do have more moments planned, let me know?